Dyed
by sodesne ON HAITUS
Summary: Tensa Zangetsu considers himself a normal person. But when a mysterious boy crashes into his life insisting that they were partners of a secret government sector, Gotei 13, he realizes that his dull white life might be dyed with bright oranges.


Dyed

Summary: Tensa Zangetsu considers himself a normal person. But when a bright haired boy crashes into his life insisting that they were partners of a secret government sector, Gotei 13, he realizes that staying normal will probably be harder than keeping a white shirt from staining.

-DYEDDYEDDYED-

"Tensa-san!"

The man continued walking, ignoring the constant call of his name. The ends of his black trench coat swayed at his ankles as he took up a swift pace. Trying to put as much distance as possible between himself and the insistent pursuer, he ignored his shoulder length wavy hair that scratched against his neck and the constant knocking of his suitcase against his knee.

"Tensa-san!"

Taking advantage of the afternoon crowd, the man ducked his head and slumped his shoulders. He hoped that by slipping into the rushing mass that the other would lose sight of him and eventually give up. Pushing up his falling sunglasses, he glanced behind him periodically to see if his pursuer gave up.

"Hey wait! Tensa—!"

The chattering of the milling people drowned out the other's voice eventually. Continuing to walk for a block more, the man finally stopped and listened. No crying of his name and no screams of waiting assaulted his ears. Turning around, he scanned the crowd for his stalker.

All he saw was the crowd moving against each other, completely disregarding the man standing right in the middle of it all. The danger seemed to pass as the man pushed up his sunglasses once more and turned around.

He was just about to breathe a breath of relief when his line of sight was met with hair. A pair of annoyed brown eyes peered up at him from under a crown of bright orange hair.

"Tensa Zangetsu! I thought I told you to wait for me, old man!"

Zangetsu sighed into his hand. This young teenager would not stop following him claiming to be his 'partner.'

And before you think of anything inappropriate: No.

-DYEDDYEDDYED-

"Shirayuki, it's not what you think it is."

"Oh really? How could you neglect your son after his mother's death! You better shape up, _neighbor_."

Tensa Zangetsu felt a headache coming up and fought to keep his voice calm and even. His landlord was a sucker for pity stories. Even with her cold composure and personality, she had a gentle heart that reflected in her eyes whenever people presented her with a sob story. Sode Shirayuki fell for every line of the bright haired teenager's story.

From his 'lonely childhood' to the death of his 'enduring mother, who conquered the heartbreak of the man who was his father,' the boy presented his life story with a slightly melancholy expression and downcast eyes. And it worked like a charm.

His landlord, Shirayuki, and his neighbors, Tobiume and Haineko, ate it up and asked for seconds. They were the only inhabitants of the forty-sixth floor of that apartment building. Each of them occupied one of the four apartment complexes on that floor.

So when he returned from work to find a bright haired teenager chatting with his neighbors, Zangetsu wished he could escape out of the window and walk down the side of the building completely defying gravity. Instead, he got out of the elevator and it proceeded to this:

"Zangetsu, I never would have pegged you for a—."

"Tensa-san, you must, absolutely must, take care of that boy because—."

"Zangetsu, are you listening?"

Finally refusing to take anymore, Zangetsu grabbed the boy by the collar of his white button up shirt and dragged him into his apartment. With a resolute slam, he muffled the protesting voices outside.

"How did you find me?" the man asked, locking the door behind him. With a quick shrug of the shoulders, Zangetsu shed his trench coat and tossed it on the dull white armchair.

"Address book," the bright haired youth replied, seating himself comfortably onto the same colored long sofa.

There was an uncomfortable silence as Zangetsu loosened the first two buttons of his white button up and rolled up his sleeves. Moving away from the living room, he worked to prepare himself some black coffee to ease his thundering headache.

He didn't hear the soft padding of footsteps over the broiling of the water and almost jumped when he heard the boy's voice.

"You can't deny it forever. If you don't admit—."

"Admit what?" he asked. "Admit that I am now apart of an underground supernatural justice organization just because you decided that I am your partner?"

"Gotei 13 is a confidential sector of the government that is completely legit," the teen said annoyed. "It deals with threats that exceed the first, second and third dimension. That doesn't make it supernatural because those threats, believe it or not, are very natural."

"I do not remember joining unless the membership is forced upon people," the man said as he poured out some dark coffee into a white ceramic mug. The mug was very in tune with the rest of his kitchen, well, with the rest of the apartment. White furniture, white walls, white tiles, white lights. With a dash of black here and there but otherwise, completely white.

"…there is no quitting once you joined, the service is for life."

"I haven't joined," Zangetsu stated before sipping his coffee. He enjoyed the bitter coffee taste on his tongue and the warm mug in the palm of his hand. It was a simple pleasure, but one he needed to deal with this brat who barged into his apartment and his life.

"You joined the moment you said my name," the boy said solemnly. He stepped forward and said…said something. Zangetsu watched the boy's lips move but no sound came out.

"—o. Remember?"

With a quick swipe, the boy took his coffee mug and took a deep drink. Just as Zangetsu was about to protest, the bright haired boy coughed spiting the coffee back into the mug.

"It's black!"

-DYEDDYEDDYED-

He wished he were crueler. Maybe if he were as cold hearted as his sector head, Daiguren Hyorinmaru, Zangetsu would throw the boy out of his apartment and out in the streets.

But the question of where the boy would go and what if something happened plagued him every time he looked at the bright orange hair. If the boy was unstable enough to believe in a secret division, he probably escaped from an insane asylum or ran away from home. As a human being, Tensa Zangetsu could not throw a teenage boy out into the restless city only to be mugged or even killed. The guilt would forever haunt him if the boy's body came up on the morning news.

That was why he fed the boy and gave him some old clothes that were too small. That was why he was pulling out the unused futon from his usually untouched closet for the thirty-fourth time.

A month had passed since the orange haired boy came to his apartment and feigned to be his son. A month has passed and the boy was still insistent that they were partners for an imaginary protection unit funded by the government. A month had passed and the boy still drank out of his coffee mug cringing as he swallowed the hot black coffee.

A month had passed and they fell into habits of sorts.

In the morning, Zangetsu would leave for work usually running into Tobiume or Shirayuki at the elevators and the boy would yell out his goodbyes for the whole world to hear emphasizing on 'father.' When he went to work, Zangetsu had no idea what the boy did during that time. He would wonder whether the boy went to school or if he returned to Gotei 13 for a 'debriefing.' He would wonder the possibilities of the boy being snatched up by a loony bin and detained there for treatment.

But without fail, every day, the boy met him in front of the office when he got off of work and they would walk home in silence.

The boy never mentioned anything about going home or back to Gotei 13. And Zangetsu no longer pushed it. If they talked, it was of frivolous things about neighbors, bosses, and food.

Sometimes Zangetsu would order take out and other times they would eat out. They played rock-paper-scissors to choose whose turn it was to decide the restaurant. Zangetsu always chose the cheapest and the boy would always choose the closest. The closest ended up at either Tobiume or Shirayuki's house.

Both of them adored the boy. Another reason he couldn't throw the boy out. If he did, one of the women would take him into their homes. And after much deliberation, the boy would once again end up with Zangetsu. That was the hypothetical conclusion but it was logical enough that Zangetsu didn't bother trying it out.

So that was why he was here laying out the futon. For the thirty-fourth time.

"Hey, Zangetsu," the boy said trying to get the older man's attention. Zangetsu laid out the futon and proceeded to ignore him. "Old man, why don't you call me by my name?"

"Brats can only be called brats."

"You know my name. Right?" the boy asked.

"Brat."

"_Zangetsu_."

He paused from his task of spreading the blanket as the boy's tone turned desperate. A desperation that he never heard from the stubborn, rude teenager. In the whole month of being ignored and shoved to a side, the boy never ever lost that fire in his eyes, the lively edge in his voice or the determination that they were partners.

"_Do you know my name?_"

"I…." –_do not_. _Why would I?_

The other's brown eyes seemed to die for just a moment. That was enough to make the man change his mind right in the middle of his sentence.

"…do. Of course I do. After all, I'm your partner."

And when the boy smiled, Zangetsu felt all guilt of lying melt away.

-DYEDDYEDDYED-

"This person does not exist. Either that or he's an illegal alien," the blind police man said. He swirled the wine glass under his nose and made an appreciative grunt. The red liquid looked deeper in color in the dimly lit bar.

"Red Burgundy." He took a light sip and murmured, "No, it's not Gevrey-Chambertin. Gallo perhaps? Yes, it must be. California just tastes different."

Zangetsu glanced at the wine bottle and resisted the urge to roll his eyes. Enma Korogi could tell the difference between various sakes and wines even from a mile away. It was a skill that the blind man polished since their time together in college. Along with that mentally compiled encyclopedia. While it was a great talent and all, listening to his friend explain the differences between European wine and what not wasn't why he was here today.

"Suzumushi," Zangetsu interrupted with an old nickname. "That is not possible. He's in my neighbor's home right now. Eating dinner and insulting me."

"What's not possible is his existence," the blind man retorted. He took another sip of the red liquid and leaned forward on the marble bar top. Zangetsu took the first sip of his whiskey and listened to the ice clink against each other. "Because we go back a long way, I put my best on the case. Suzumebachi, you remember her. And this is what she got."

The blind man reached into his black coat and slid a manila folder down the bar top. Zangetsu picked it up and flicked the tabbed folder open. Looking inside, he saw nothing but the picture he had given them.

"Nothing," Zangetsu clarified with a raise of an eyebrow.

"Now don't come pointing fingers, you know how the department works Mr. Ex-agent. So unless you want to come back and do the job yourself—"

"Suzumushi, I wasn't going to say anything," Zangetsu chuckled into his drink. His friend had always been higher strung than most even back in college when Zangetsu himself had been wilder. Thinking back on the past, however, wasn't an activity he could divulge in at the moment.

The boy did not exist in government computers. If he did, there was no doubt the little federal agent would have found information. Suzumebachi looked like a little girl, but, cliché as it is, don't judge a book by its cover.

"Zangetsu," Korogi said hesitantly. He set the wine glass on the bar top and, if he could, stared intently at it, refusing to look in Zangetsu's direction. "Remember that I used to be a private detective before I entered the force?"

"Wasn't that firm suspended because of its illegal activities? The owner was a woman called Kyoka or Kyoko Suigetsu or something," Zangetsu recounted, noting the slight flicker of the yellow light above them. He had still been a federal agent at the time, not yet retired to a small cubicle in a large insurance firm. While the case hadn't been his, he remembered reading on it. While they never found corporeal evidence on the illegal activities, the firm was still shut down.

A rumor that had gone around at the time was that they messed with some confidential government material. But rumors were rumors.

"Here, find him," Korogi pressed a name card into Zangetsu's free hand. "Pay him the right amount and he'll answer all your questions. We used to work together."

Zangetsu looked down at the card and saw a name scrawled in tasteful gold lettering.

"He used to go by Shinso."

-DYEDDYEDDYED-

The bells jingled as the door was pushed open. Bright white sunlight filtered into the shaded room and the breeze fluttered loose papers on tidy neat desks. A figure reclined in a revolving chair at the closest desk to the door. His feet were propped up on the cleared desk, the shiny brown leather shined as the light hit them, and a newspaper was opened on his face hiding all but a crop of silver hair from sight. Even with the approaching visitor, the man didn't look at the stranger much less move into a more professional pose.

"Well, wha' do we have 'ere?"

"Noyari-san," Zangetsu replied as he stepped smoothly in front of the silver man's desk. As door closed and the light was shut out, the name on the golden nameplate atop the man's desk became visible.

_Kamishini Noyari, Private Detective_

"Sorry, but Shinso's out," the man behind the desk replied. A languid hand removed the newspaper and Zangetsu could have sworn he saw of flash of blue eyes. If he did, it had been replaced almost instantaneously with a pair of slits. Taking off his sunglasses, Zangetsu waited for his eyes to adjust to his darker surrounding before taking a good look at this man who was not the private detective Kamishini Noyari.

"Both he n' Kyoka-chan are out on another case," the man said with mock happiness. The lips curved too wide for a smile and the pupils hiding behind those ever-shut eyelids. A long spidery hand came to comb back strands of silver hair and his leather shoes were eased gently to the floor. "May I be o' service? Guess ye'd call me the secretary o' sorts."

"I want a background check," Zangetsu said finally after several moments of pressing silence. Using his free hand, the other carrying his work case, Zangetsu took out the picture he had carried in the inside pocket of his coat. A distinct shock of orange hair. He slid the photo to the silver haired man and the man seemed to freeze for a split second before smiling a cruel and terrible smile. "Do you know when they will be back?"

"No sir, but I do the job just as fine," the silver haired man said with an amused smile. A smile that would have made Zangetsu very uncomfortable if not the constant exposure to his cold-hearted boss. If he had to describe this man's smile, it would either be of a fox playing with its prey or a snake about to eat its prey. Either way, red lights went off in his mind. "So, what'cha ya wanna know?"

"I think I'll wait for—"

"Should I start with our lovely division Gotei 13 then?'

Zangetsu stared at the silver haired stranger and the silver haired stranger stared right back. Well, it was impossible to tell with his eyes closed but even behind those eyelids, it felt like he was being stared down.

"Unless ye already know about that, but that look in yo eye tells me otherwise."

Zangetsu looked on as blue irises peered at him from the curtain of silver hair. His expression was the very definition of wicked amusement, like a man who knew a dirty little secret.

"Tell me everything."

This went against his better judgment and gut feelings, but he needed to know. He needed to know, as soon as possible.

"Ichimaru Gin, at yer service."

-DYEDDYEDDYED-

"_The only way we establish our existence is fo' someone to 'ear our names. That person is, by sacred law, our partners and a member o' Gotei 13. If no one can hear it, sooner or later we cease to exist and become Hollows."_

"_Hollows?"_

"_Zangetsu-san, did he explain anything to ya? Hollows are the natural threat from dimensions unknown to the powerless masses." A heavy sigh._

"_You said we. Is that how you know him?" _

"_The boy? I ain't have a clue who he is. Never seen him before today. Dried persimmon?" _

"_No thank you." _

"_Suit yerself." Shrug._

"_But you realized what he was. So the both of you came from the same place, I assume."_

"_Ya assumed wrong. All us can tell each other apart regardless. Well, only us existences can. Non-existents, like the kid, don't know their right from left."_

"_He doesn't exist?"_

"_He ain't have a name yet." _

"_A name?" _

"_Until his partner hears his name, he don't exist." Slowly word by word._

"_But he does." Retort and eye roll._

"_Sure, to ya maybe. But he don't exist to no one else. Definitely not to Gotei 13. And that's what really matters. For him, at least."_

"_For him." Repeats slowly._

"_I guess for ya too. It would be helpful if ya wanna live."_

_Smile._

-DYEDDYEDDYED-

The moment the older man came home, he could tell something happened. Zangetsu hadn't been in front of the office waiting for him. Nor was he at the apartment when the boy ran back. For about ten minutes, he had an irrational fear that maybe…maybe the man had fallen prey to a wandering hollow that had yet to be dealt with. And if that was the case, he couldn't do anything even if he found the old man.

Without the contract, all the bright haired boy could do was, well, nothing. Not a damn thing. And it would just be a replay of his past partner. In which he couldn't save his partner or his family.

_You _are_ apart of the family. If you're going to continue to masquerade as my son, you might as well be my son._

Even though he had only been with his partner for a small amount of time. Those six months had been the best he's ever had.

But he'd be damned if he allowed Tensa Zangetsu go the way they did.

So when the man came home, weary but alive, the bright haired boy felt his breath even. Zangetsu was quieter, not that he was a man of many words. And he would not look the boy in the eye. Murmuring a quick almost inaudible excuse, the older man slipped into his room and didn't come out even for their customary nighttime coffee.

Later, the boy peeked into the bedroom and saw Zangetsu knocked out on the bed with his coat on the floor and socks still on. At first, he merely shrugged it off as a bad day at work. Knowing the man hated his coat wrinkled, the boy moved to hang it up in his usual place on the door. A small piece of paper fell out.

It was an appointment card.

_Kamishini Noyari, Private Detective_

_Saturday, 8pm_

It was normal enough that the boy was about to put it back when he felt a faint trace. The faint trace of an existence.

It was abnormal for existences to leave traces on objects since they had better reign of their powers. When they did, it was usually for a purpose. It was to either alert a non-existent of their presence or to mark a target. Both reasons worried him.

The boy quickly hung up the coat and left the room with the card. Grabbing his cell phone, he dialed and waited for the other side to connect. While he waited, he inspected the card and realized that there was a slight discoloration.

On the corner of the card, there was a sticky smudge of fruit. Bring it to his nose, the boy recognized the smell.

Persimmons.

"Toushiro, I need your help."

-DYEDDYEDDYED-

A/N: Just another thing I had in mind for the longest time. I'm probably not going to continue it seeing as I'm not really sure how to. But if I do, I will. Maybe.

Well, I've always wondered what would happen when the whole thing was reversed. XD Well, I'm sure everyone knows who "the boy" is. But I honestly didn't mean for it to be so long. D:

Yay! 2nd Bleach fic! (not that anyone's counting)

Thanks for reading and please do review! :D


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